Sister I Don't Have
by MelWil
Summary: Rose meets someone in a dark doorway (A very late Tearstains Story)


Title: Sister I Don't Have  
  
Author: MelWil  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Fandom: Harry Potter: Tearstains Universe  
  
Disclaimer: I own them not. Well, except for Rose. Lilith belongs to Lizbee. The other's are J K Rowling's Feedback: linawilsonhotmail.com Summary: Rose meets someone in a dark doorway  
  
Author's note: Lilith of course belongs to Lizbee's Girl Most Likely. I kidnapped her for this. This is a Tearstains story that is very much out of order.  
  
"Look! It's the daughter! Over there. It's the daughter!"  
  
Rose sighed. It was the same every year. No matter how discreet they tried to be, someone always figured out she was Margaret Rose Potter, the long lost daughter of the great Harry Potter. Sometimes it was reporters with notebooks and floating quills and hovering photographers who never talked. Other times it was professional autograph hunters, or people who claimed to have dined with her father in some far flung place he had never even visited. Last year she had been recognised by a crouched witch, with dark circles around her eyes and an over sized hood, who had offered to buy Rose because her blood was sure to contain certain magical qualities unavailable anywhere else.  
  
After that her uncle Ron insisted he should join the shopping party. "We've got to keep Rose safe," he told her mother, oblivious to Rose listening through the thin walls of their cheap, rented house. "We don't want to draw any undue attention to her."  
  
Ginny laughed shortly. "She does a good enough job of that herself."  
  
Rose scowled at the tone of her mother's voice. It wasn't her fault she was the black sheep of the family. It wasn't her fault she'd been sorted into Slytherin after generations and generations of Weasleys and Potters being sorted into Gryffindor. She never asked to be hidden for so many years either, or to be born after her father died. It wasn't her fault people found her interesting.  
  
"Look over here, Miss Potter." Rose blinked as a large flash exploded in her face, wishing she had a hood to draw in front of her eyes. She could see her classmates sitting across the alley in front of the ice cream parlour, sneering at her. It was going to take a great deal of bribery to get them to like her again after this.  
  
"Are you excited to be going back to Hogwarts, Miss Potter? Who is your favourite teacher? What year are you going into now? Third? Fourth?"  
  
"Fifth, actually." Rose glared at the stout, little reporter in front of her, holding his gaze until Ron stood in front of her.  
  
"You've got a picture of her. I think you would be wise to move along now." He put his hand out across the photographer's camera, stopping him from taking any more photos of Rose.  
  
"It's a free world, isn't it? I don't have to move along if I don't want to." The reporter tried to look at Rose around Ron's robes. "You don't mind, do you love?"  
  
Rose rolled her eyes and took a step back away from the commotion. Her uncle stepped forward, towering over the reporter. "Leave us. Now."  
  
The little reporter pulled himself up to his full height. "I shouldn't have to take this from you. You're the auror that got Harry Potter killed, aren't you? What does Miss Potter think about that? And why should I have to do what you say?"  
  
Ron pulled his wand from his robes. "Because I said so."  
  
"What do you think of Headmaster Dumbledore, Miss Potter?" the reporter bellowed. "Do you think he's still a crazy old bastard or has he reformed?"  
  
As Ron lunged at the reporter, Rose took the chance the confusion and her mother's inattention gave her and snuck away from the group. A few hurried steps and she found herself in the dark doorway of a strange building that seemed to straddle Diagon and Knockturn Alley.  
  
"What are you hiding from?"  
  
A hand gripped her shoulder and turned her around. Rose looked up, noticing the intricate silver clasps at the top of heavy black robes, the long black hair that fell in uneven waves around a sharp, feminine face and eyes that seemed to look right through her. Rose shivered a little.  
  
"what makes you think I'm hiding?"  
  
The woman laughed, her hand still tight on Rose's shoulder. "People don't usually hang out on my doorstep for the fun of it."  
  
Rose pointed at the fight continuing in the middle of Diagon Alley. "I'm hiding from my family. Don't you like to hide from your family sometimes?"  
  
The woman let Rose go. "Most of the time, actually. Why are they fighting?"  
  
Rose shrugged. "A reporter said something my uncle didn't like."  
  
"A reporter?" The woman leant back against the doorway and stared at Rose.  
  
Rose sunk down to sit on the stone step, tucking her knees up close to her. The woman glanced over at the ongoing fight before kneeling next to her.  
  
"I'm the daughter of someone famous," Rose said apologetically. "There's a lot of reporters."  
  
The woman reached out for Rose's left hand, holding it in her own. "I'm the daughter of someone infamous," she said, her eyes full of understanding. "There used to be a reporter of two hanging around in my time."  
  
"Really?" Rose looked at the woman out of the corner of her eyes. "How do I know you're not lying to me to get me to like you? I do that a lot. I mean, you know, there isn't anyone who really likes me . . . "  
  
Before the woman could answer, Rose heard her mother and uncle calling her name out. She hurried to her feet, brushing dust from her robes. "I've got to go," she said. "My mum and my uncle . . ."  
  
The woman stood up and held out a small, white card. "My name's Lilith. You should write to me. I'll try and show you I'm not lying."  
  
Rose took the card from Lilith and tucked it into her robes. "My name's Rose," she said, "Rose Potter."  
  
She turned and ran towards her mother and uncle, relieved to see the fighting had ceased and the reporter had disappeared. She endured a scolding as she followed her mother into Flourish and Blotts, her presence once again relatively unnoticed. She looked over her shoulder, unable to see anyone watching her. Still, she shouldn't shake the feeling that Lilith would be keeping an eye on her for a very long time. 


End file.
